It is known to use signposts for the purpose of guiding users of a route along their path of travel. Such signpost provide users with the necessary information for directions, as well as, among others, information with regard to the distances covered over their route.
Such signposts also have the purpose of guiding the users with regard to the existence of services throughout the travel path, such as gas stations, restaurants, hospitals, police stations, among others. In addition, signposts have the purpose of guiding users with regard to the occurrence of geographical reference points such as state and city borders, rest area locations, historic parks and sites and educational messages of traffic safety.
Such signposts typically encompass graphic images applied to signs of different shapes, such as rectangular, supported above the ground by a support post. The planar surface of the signs can present different colors (e.g., green, red, etc.), where legends, arrows and diagrams in a different color (e.g., white, black, etc.) could be applied. Signs are also provided for highway identification having a particular shape. Likewise supplementary signs identifying services often present a blue background.
According to the current regulation in DENATRAN (Brazil), the support posts must be sized and fixed in order to withstand the load of the signpost itself and the effects of wind action acting on the sign while ensuring its correct position. The support posts must be fixed in order to keep the signs in their correct position, preventing them from being turned or displaced. For the fixation of the sign to the support post, it must be used proper fixing elements, in order to prevent its loosening of displacement, even after impacts or collusions.
Currently, the materials primarily used for production of support posts are galvanized steel and immunized wood, especially hardwood. The fact is that the hardwood was replaced by treated eucalyptus wood because of the shortage on the environment. Thus, the eucalyptus wood, according to the provisions of Law No. 97 of Oct. 20, 1965 and decree No. 58016 of Mar. 18, 1955 (Brazil), must receive treatment with water soluble protector in autoclave under vacuum and high pressure in order to receive the black color painting, as well as presenting retention and penetration rate of 6.5 kg of the protecting material per m3 of wood according to NBR 6232 (Brazil).
However, despite of eucalyptus wood having its origin from replanting, it presents a difficult process for its treatment, in addition to chemicals used, such as arsenic, Copper Chrome Arsenic or Copper Chrome Boric Acid, which can bring health concerns for postconsumer used of this wood.
Further drawback lies in the fact of support post made as of wood treated after its useful life for incineration to the formation of coal or other purposes, but without due care in relation to the chemicals that are present in a significant amount as 6.5 kg/m3. The allocation of these supports for Class I Landfill would be suggested, which is a very difficult procedure to be inspected.
On the other hand, the support posts made of steel present susceptibility to corrosion developed by the chemical or electrochemical action, which is commonly used as “rust”, affecting not only the aesthetic appearance of the material, as well as the mechanical resistance and useful life.
In order to aggregate suitable resistance characteristics there are specific treatments, such as galvanizing obtained by means of application of chemicals in the support post body, such as the galvanizing process by immersion where the zincs with 98.0% of purity, contain more than 1.0% of lead and small amounts of other metals such as cadmium, iron, tin and copper, as well as the aluminum sometimes is added in small amounts, around 0.005% to increase the shine of the part and let its coating smoother.
It occurs that, during the process of galvanization process by hot immersion, two residues appear and can contaminate the bath, that is, dreg, a slurry consisting of Fe—Zn—5.0%+95% —, heavier than the molten zinc, which is concentrated in the bottom of the tank and grey or zinc oxide slag that is formed in the bath surface, referred to as “earth”.
It is crucial that the parts are passivated after the galvanization, aiming to preserve them against wet storage stain. Some materials may present growth of the intermediate layers, due to the chemical composition and, therefore, dark Grey staining process. In this case, the speedy of the cooling of the material must be accelerated in a passivating bath.
Thus, it is verified that the natural resources, such as iron ore are used in the production of support posts of galvanized steel, as well as other natural sources for the obtainment of energy to cast the iron ore, in addition to charcoal, mineral coal and electrical energy, cause harm to the environment.
Another considerable drawback of current support post due to the necessary resistance to weather consists in the fact that they are deemed true fixed barriers against impacts by collision of vehicles, often causing death, which has being a cause for technological studies, aiming to find troubleshooting for this drawback. Accordingly, support posts must be structured to not be a factor causing injury or death in public roads, according to NBR15486 (Brazil). Thus, it required that the support post have a collapsible property such that, during the collision by a vehicle with the support post, the support post bends away from the colliding vehicle without breaking free and not providing abrupt deceleration of the vehicle and its passengers.
In a research conducted in specialized database, it was found documents related to supports/rebar/crosspiece obtained as of recycling material.
The document No. PI 0505428-1 is related to the polymer crosspiece, with natural fibers and structural hardware resulting from extruded or injected origin, thermoformed compound of virgin or recycled plastic mixed with natural fibers in a ratio of 1 to 70% of the composition and structured with metallic rods, giving full play to replace hardwood treated or used as “crosspiece”. As the structural reinforcement, it is presented four rebar in the diameter of six to 12 mm, depending on the diameter, of the structure required from the crosspiece according to structure requirement.
The document No. PI 0704541-7 is related to the process to reuse and transform packages and toxic and contaminated materials in new products, and products obtained as of the manufacture of crosspiece, among others.
The document No. C1 0900485-8 consists of the process for obtaining railway sleepers but with the replacement of the core wood for a core made of the mixture of recycled polymer and chopped glass fiber, to be positioned in the region of fixation of tirefonds and support plates, jointly to longitudinal stiffeners rebar.
The document No. U.S. Pat. No. 4,150,790 is referred to the enhanced railway sleeper made by forming and bonding lignocellulose material in a monolithic triturated beam around a plurality of reinforcing bars, each one of which has a plurality of spaced protrusions fixing attached throughout its length, in specific positions with regard to midpoint of the loop and the rails mounted.
The document No. U.S. Pat. No. 5,658,519 refers to the elongate element, made of the supply of a plastic core substantially solid within a extrusion die, continuously, and a molten plastic within a framework causing surrounds of the molten plastic and binding for the plastic core and reinforcing bars to feed into the framework, in positions that surround the plastic core.
Upon performing an analysis of the documents, it is verified that the patents of No. PI 0505428-1, PI 0704541-7, C1 0900485-8, U.S. Pat. No. 4,150,790 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,658,519 use recycling materials, but differently from the material used by the applicant for the obtainment of supports for vertical signposts.